Joe Louis Vs. Wladimir Klitschko

Okay, firstly when Sanders was 224 he was a pudgy 224. His ideal weight was around 215, so let's get same basic facts straight. Sanders was pudgy at 225.

Secondly, even in the 60's there are several guys he does not outsize, notably Cleveland Wiliams who was 6'3" and around 215, Earnie Terrell who was 6'6" and between 212-215, George Chuvalo 6'0" and 216-220 plus, Sonny Liston 6'1" 212-218, Muhammad Ali 6'3" and around 210.
Then you still have the short but squat fighters like Frazier and Bonavena who weighed around 205.

But the biggest problem for Sanders is that he never scored a stoppage past 6 rounds. His stamina was not good and his chin was questionable. All bad drawbacks in the era of 15 round fights.

Could he be a contender in the 60's? Sure. He had size, fast hands, a solid punch, decent skills and was a southpaw. No doubt he could beat some good fighters from the 60's. He'd be a player definitely.

I don't see him beating a Liston, an Ali, a Frazier or an ironman like Chuvalo, who could withstand anything Sanders could throw.

I think he'd battle with Earnie Terrell, who was a big guy and a darn hard man to stop, but who had good skills and could go 15 rounds without a problem.
Cleveland Williams against Sanders could go either way...both had power but were also vulnerable.

 

Sanders never ko'd anybody at elite level. His record is made up of guys you never heard of. Most of his knock out victims were probably unconditioned to take shots and hadn't the punch resistance of elite fighters.

Rahman is a proven harder hitter than Sanders.

 

How many Olympic Champions have been tested positive for anabolic steroids? Name me the sub 10 seconds achievers who haven't. This is spurious anyway because sprinting is a power sport, without skills and subtlety.

 

Are you on medication? You should be.

 

Sanders's shots have more pop because they are landing on Vlad! And Shavers's right hand that knocked Holmes down would be enough to kayo Vlad.

 

Sure a fighter that can go 12 can go 15, but the marathon analogy just doesn't fit.
The reason being that nobody is hitting you in the head in a marathon. You run your race and nobody is directly physically opposing you.
Yes, you can pace yourself, but in a boxing match one guy can get his second wind before the other guy, he can pace himself better, he can strategize and go to the body early which could pay off late, he could find that opening that hasn't been there all night but due to the other guy's fatigue, that opening is suddenly there in the 14th, a cut that wasn't a problem for 12 rounds suddenly opens in the 13th...again there are way too many variables to make an analogy like running fit into a boxing match.

Some guys like Monzon always got better and better as the fight progressed...statistically so did Ali...so technically while his opponent could go 12 with him, he could turn up the heat late and get a stoppage in the championship rounds.
When you're already tired, those three rounds count for a lot. I understand what you're getting at, but the analogy isn't a good fit for me.

As for your predictions, well I'm just going to let it go. As McGrain said to you the other day, you're pretty much the lone gunman here. But each to their own.

 

I just want to come back to this quickly. I was watching some Terrell earlier (against an opponent Gerhard Zech who himself is listed as 6'6" and 215) and while you may mock him for being a skinny guy at 212, the mentality was different those days.
As I've said before, heavyweights trained down to a target range. There is footage on Youtube of a 19 year old George Foreman in the amateurs at an athletic 226 lbs. That is heavier than Wlad when he fought Puritty, and keep in mind George was only 19. Yet, he often weighed less than 220 as a pro.

Take Terrell and slap him on a weight training program, and there is your 'modern super-heavyweight.' In fact, he could probably just eat a little more or diet a little less and weigh 220 with no problems. Terrell has skinny legs but his torso wasn't so small. Terrell + weights = Deontay Wilder.

Take a 19 year old Foreman and do the same, and there is another 'modern' super-heavyweight.

Hell, Don Dunphy the analyst was going through some other fighters on the card, and there was a 6'9" guy weighing 232 lbs. on the bill. The Tyson Fury of this era.

There has simply been a mentality shift, where being bulky is in vogue now. The difference between a lot of old-timers and today's guys is wafer thin when it comes to natural size. Wafer thin.

You look at a lot of the modern guys today and compare them to a lot of their predecessors, and they're bulkier but smooth, often with a roll of fat or spare tyre to compliment the bulk. They have muscle, but a lot of the heft is water weight and fat too. But their frames are often no larger than guys from even the 60's or before.

 

All in all wlad lost by Ko...knockdown or was pushed past 10 rounds with 10 fighters that are similar to Louis size. Louis was 3x the fighters they were.

 

No, I didn't mean to insinuate that they simply train on cheeseburgers or anything. What I'm saying is that the phrase 'modern super-heavyweight' leads one to assume these guys are all Ivan Drago clones with super high-tech training regimens, which, when you look at the division today as a whole, you realise is miles from the truth.
Wlad aside, there are a lot of overly bulky boxers, not particularly athletic guys, or guys who are plain fat. Not all obviously, but a lot. I like Wilder's physique though, maybe a bit thin in the legs, but he has a strong, athletic look to him. That's no indication of his fighting prowess of course, but it's more along the lines of what I think a big, modern heavyweight should look like.

Fat is a good indication though, that that athlete is not trained to 100% optimal efficiency.
I agree that a little bit of excess fat won't necessarily harm his performance, but it sure isn't helping either. If you look at a guy like Stiverne, he has a physique that is known in bodybuilding circles as 'blocky.' He is smooth, wide-waisted and carrying a layer of fat around his middle, which becomes noticeable when he hunches forward.
He is obviously training with weights and consuming a large amount of calories, but is ingesting excess calories which give him that blocky appearance with a layer of fat around his middle. While he can go 12 rounds as he has already proven, I think he would do well to lose about 20 pounds (most of which would be fat and water) which could only help his performances.
Chisora is another good example of this.

Dereck Chisora is Joe Frazier or Oscar Bonavena in reality, but one that has deliberately put on bulk for whatever reason. He is a a big man, but he is no David Tua, who had a naturally massive and squat frame. Put it this way, there is more justification for Tua to weigh 230+ than there is for Chisora. He is simply too heavy for his size of frame, although I see he is making efforts to come in lighter now, and his performances have benefitted from it.

Sam Peter is another. His frame is not particularly big, but he often came in at 240-250, which is in my opinion simply way too heavy. He has that distended gut (GH gut?) and a wide, blocky appearance. He is undoubtedly muscular and strong, but in my opinion carrying too much muscle.

Even Tyson later in his career started to fall for the 'more is better' mindset, when he came in at over 230 for two fights. He looked like crap because he was losing the assets that made him good. Those extra pounds of muscle never did him any good at all.

I think George was incredibly clever about his comeback. All those cheeseburger jokes and jokes about being fat and jolly was a smokescreen. He was carrying fat, but he was also extremely muscular beneath that layer of fat, and he was always an extremely strong and powerful man anyway.

They were less common sure, but the popular perception that they were all small cruiserweights is false. There were lots of naturally large (but generally lean) men back then who were no smaller naturally than a good deal of the fighters that make up the division now.
But yeah, the division back the was littered with modern-day cruiserweights, that much is obvious.

What I'm saying is that this shift in mentality from training down to a target weight as opposed to retaining weight (or even gaining it) has created this misconception that there is this huge gulf in size between the big fighters of today and the big fighters of those days, and it's just untrue.

 

..

 

What about Haye. Took him 12 rounds , but Louis has no chance?

 

haha that settles that

 

Yes, Louis has no chance.

 

To end this thread on a good note: Haye would demolish Louis. Yes, Haye. Every modern day elite level HW would absolutely demolish Louis, Dempsey, Baer, Carnera and whoever else people come up from the classic age.

HW fighters start becoming competitive with modern day fighters from the 60s on, and progressively so with every decade. There's a reason people started calling them "the modern era HWs".

 

Chris Bryd went 19 rounds with wlad and beat vitali. But oh ya Louis has no chance...lol. Louis would ko both klit brothers...seriously.